New bipartisan push for Peralta medal

Hunter and pols hope new SecDef reconsiders case in light of support

The Navy Cross citation issued for Peralta in 2008 says that “without hesitation and with complete disregard for his own personal safety, Sgt. Peralta reached out and pulled the grenade to his body.” Peralta’s family has refused to accept the Navy Cross medal.

Minor discrepancies in eyewitness war zone accounts are to be expected, said retired Lt. Gen. Richard Natonski. He led the assault into Fallujah as commanding general of 1st Marine Division and was among those who approved the Medal of Honor for Peralta.

“This was combat. You can ask three people who witness a car accident about it, and you get three different answers. OK, (Peralta’s eyewitnesses) they varied a little bit. With people shooting at you, it’s pretty hard to remember something like that. The fact is they were in that room and if that grenade had gone off in some location other than beneath him, they all would have been wounded or killed,” Natonski said.

Three neurosurgeons from Naval Medical Center San Diego buttressed the eyewitness statements, concluding that it was possible for Peralta to have acted consciously despite his head wound, Natonski said.

“Who is some guy on the secretary of defense’s staff to question it?” Natonski asked. “Regardless of what someone who looked at an X-ray or an autopsy report says, there are people alive today, people who have children and family today, because of what Sgt. Peralta did.”

In December, then-Defense Secretary Leon Panetta reaffirmed the previous decision, declining to approve a Medal of Honor. The Defense Department had reconsidered the case after Hunter submitted combat video and a new independent pathology report that concluded Peralta could have acted consciously despite the head wound.

Christensen, the Pentagon spokesman, said at the time that no precedent had been set that would give greater weight to forensic evidence over eyewitness accounts.

“Each case must be evaluated on its own merit,” he said. “The fact that this case included an independent review infers no change in the way Medal of Honor packages will be reviewed in the future.”

“Two separate secretaries of defense have now personally reviewed the case, clearly showing that the decision process is not taken lightly,” Christensen added.

Feinstein, in a statement Tuesday introducing the resolution in the Senate, said: “I do not take the awarding of the Medal of Honor lightly. Indeed, the Medal of Honor is our country’s highest and most prestigious military award.”

She added, however: “It says something to me that seven eyewitnesses verified that Sgt. Peralta absorbed the blast of the grenade and saved the lives of his fellow Marines,” and that the Navy Cross citation backed up their accounts and the recommendation for Medal of Honor, as did his local commanders, the commandant of the Marine Corps, the secretary of the Navy, and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

“Peralta gave his life for our country and his fellow Marines. His actions in combat and the evidence make it clear to me that he has gone above and beyond the call of duty and is deserving of the Medal of Honor,” Feinstein said.